


Black Leaf Falls

by Randstad



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randstad/pseuds/Randstad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As sovereign ruler of the Candy Kingdom, Princess Bubblegum's needs are many and her wants are few—and people often get them confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Leaf Falls

The Candy Kingdom had a ritual that must be repeated every six years, for the successful reaping of red vines and the gathering of gum drops. It required the princess to journey into the woods alone, on the night of a harvest moon, with little else but a candle and a quill.

Bonnibel first met the Harvest Princess when she was six. She had gone into the woods alone, as the traditions required; she had left her servants nervous at the border and signed the contract by herself, bright-eyed in the light of the Harvest Princess's red-gold tunic and the jewel at her neck, and when they shook hands she could see the glow of the princess's skin fighting its way through the cracks between her fingers.

Bonnibel was eighteen now, and had been eighteen for some time. In this, she and Harvest Princess were finally matched.

"Princess Bubblegum," Harvest Princess said, the gleaming centerpiece of a clearing in the woods. She bowed. Her wild hair skirted the ground.

"Oh, don't be silly," Bonnibel said, flapping her hand.

"Have you known me to jest?" Harvest Princess asked. But she was smiling as she took Bonnibel's hand, leading her to a seat beside a fallen tree. With her other hand she produced a roll of parchment from her branching sash.

They spoke intimately, like old friends, even as Bonnibel read the contract word for word. She put a lens to her eye and followed the path of the long-winding runes, and spoke absently of how the summer had passed (sticky, even for the Candy Kingdom); beside her, Harvest Princess murmured about how dreadful it must be, to be so sun-prone, to find no solace in shade.

At last she put her hand delicately on the curve of Bonnibel's shoulder, and Bonnibel had to draw away.

" _Hey_ ," she said.

There were deep, cavernous places in Harvest Princess's eyes, like the waterless spots on the moon. "My dear," she said.

Bonnibel scrawled her name in haste, then reached down to put the quill in her lap. "Wait."

The other princess shook her head. Browning autumn leaves peaked out beneath her ears, the tips of which were burning bright. "My apologies," she said. "I merely thought—"

Bonnibel sputtered. "Thought what?"

Harvest Princess shook her head again. For a moment her gaze was far away; when her eyes slid back to Bonnibel, they were narrow, and there was a brittle look in them. The glow of her ears had spread down to her neck.

"You _do_ choose to consort with that— _thing_ ," she spat. 

Bonnibel felt her nails dig into her palm beneath the tabletop, but when she lifted her hand again she found it outstretched.

"Thank you," she said, "for honoring the customs of our forebears."

It may have been that the flint in Harvest Princess's eyes struck a spark in her hands: the royal handshake was tight and unnaturally warm. If her red fingers lingered, and if her moonlit eyes strayed too long to the bow on Bonnibel's back as she left the clearing, Bonnibel could not say a word.

* * *

There was a shadow spread supine on the top of the gate, and when it disappeared Bonnibel knew Marceline was following her inside.

"Hey," Marceline said. "You okay?"

Bonnibel shrugged. They traveled in silence to her tower and its purple winding staircase. Marceline followed her ascent from the outside, her voice fading in and out with the gaps between windows.

"She never liked me, you know," Marceline was saying, her hair rustling against the windowsills. "Creatures of the night in this realm have this, like, _complex_."

"They think you undermine them."

At the final window Marceline folded her arms on the ledge and gazed at her. "Is that all she thinks?"

Bonnibel let her hand pause on the door for the briefest of moments. Then she pushed her door open wide, letting the Vampire Queen drift in like a breeze. 

She shed her traveling cloak and stepped to the window. Outside, the moon was orange-red-orange. She frowned at it, then tugged the curtain shut.

"So about the red vine reaping next week," Marceline said. "How mad would you be if I crashed the party?"

Bonnibel sat down on her bed to draw the laces from her boots. "Our good fortune will come to an end someday," she mused aloud, "so probably pretty ticked."

The silence went on for too long. She looked up to find Marceline right in front of her, something soft in her eyes like molten gold.

"She never liked me," Marceline repeated. "Oh, geez, Bonnie—"

Bonnibel covered Marceline's mouth with her hand. "Shut it, dummy," she said wearily. 

She could still see moonlight, slipping into her room beneath the curtain. It felt like having an eavesdropper. She wanted morning to come. She didn't want Marceline to leave.

She felt a muscle jump beneath her palm, and then the prickle of fangs. When she pulled her hand away, Marceline dove in: her mouth was cool and wet and _sorry_ , for no really good reason, even though Bonnibel had basically said it was alright—hadn't she? 

But then Marceline was gone anyway, the curtain whispering behind her as she went, and there was little else for Bonnibel to do but turn in for the night. Beneath her sheets, sliding a mask over her eyes, she turned her face into her pillow and wondered if the day would come when her words would ever be enough.


End file.
